Somewhere Out There
by MaddisonB
Summary: Lucy Brook is the newest recruit to the Las Vegas crime lab. After a particular event led her to move to Las Vegas, follow her as she searches for the one thing that she knows is somewhere out there. - I'm terrible at summaries. Please read though. :
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

**Disclaimer: **I don't own CSI, or anything related to CSI. I just own this , the town in Idaho is made up.

As she slowly walked along the road to the Las Vegas Police department building, with her silver briefcase held firmly in her left hand, she let out a long deep sigh. The night was too quiet and almost too serene that she briefly dismissed the fact that she was about to become the Las Vegas crime lab's newest recruit. Yes, Lucy Brook was about to start a completely new phase of both her career and her life. After all, she deserved it. Lucy thought back to the events of the previous year and gave an involuntary shudder. Before, she had thought that the small town of Strabane in Idaho would be her home forever. It was where she had a job as a forensic research assistant at a local college, where the friends and family she so dearly loved lived, and where her high-school sweetheart Steven was. The events of May 29 changed things forever.

That night had ruined everything. She lost Steven, she lost her friends and most importantly she lost her job which had meant absolutely everything to her. She was left completely isolated and alone. After several months of solitude, she decided enough was enough. She enrolled at a specialist forensics school, completed her training and passed with flying colours. She applied for every available post, and she got accepted to the Las Vegas crime lab. She left everything she had ever known behind her to move to a tiny one bedroom apartment near the LVPD headquarters so she could walk to work without needing to find the invisible money that she clearly did not have to pay for a car. The rest they say is history.

With this, Lucy suddenly broke out of her daze to realise that she was standing directly in front of the entrance to the LVPD. With a quick fixing of her hair and clothes, Lucy took a deep breath, and opened the door, sensing tonight was the night that changed everything.

**A/N: **The next chapter is much longer. Please review. It means more chapters can be added. :]


	2. Chapter One

**Chapter One**

**A/N: **Although we're never told Detective Vartann's first name, I'm going to call him Eric. This character is based on the way Vartann looks on the show, however for everything else, like his mannerisms and his general characteristics I'm just using my creativity. Btw, I have no idea what the codes are for the different crimes, so I just made it up. Hope you enjoy this and please review after you've read. The feedback I receive will help determine if I'm going to continue with this story. 

**Disclaimer: **I don't own CSI, or anything related to CSI.

* * *

Lucy walked up the front desk, and waited until an officer appeared, studying the various leaflets scattered across the desk. She picked up one about high profile cases that the LVPD has cracked and began to flick through it, only half-heartedly taking in the information.

"Can I help you?"

"Oh." Lucy looked up. "Hi, I'm Lucy Brook, the new CSI. I was told to ask for a Catherine Willows."

"Welcome to the LVPD", the male police officer said. "Take a seat over there and I'll get Ms Willows to come down to you."

"Okay. Thank you very much". Lucy smiled at the officer and walked over to a small row of seats. Sitting down, she started twisting strands of her brown curly hair. She always did it when she was nervous but she never knew why.

* * *

While Lucy was waiting for Ms Willows to appear, she began to daydream about what she was going to spend her first pay-check on. She had narrowed the list down to a small television or a microwave. Suddenly she was snapped out of her daydream by a female voice.

"Excuse me, are you Lucy Brook?" the woman asked.

Looking up, Lucy smiled and held out her hand. "Yes I am and you must be Catherine. It's great to meet you."

"It's great to meet you. I've heard a lot of great things about you so it's good to finally meet you." Catherine returned the gesture by shaking her hand.

Lucy blushed slightly.

"Come on, let's get you acquainted with the rest of the team," said Catherine.

"Great," replied Lucy.

Walking through the maze of corridors, Lucy was thinking that she would have to draw a map in order for her to get anywhere. She was useless with directions. Seeing the slightly dazed face of Lucy, she said, "Don't worry. You'll soon find your way around. You'll be spending so much time around here that it will begin to feel like your home."

"It's just so big and I'm useless at finding my way about," replied Lucy. "Plus, I haven't got anything else to do so I won't mind if I have to spend a lot of time around here."

Catherine gave out a small giggle. "That's what everyone says when they first start, but trust me, that feeling will not last forever. "

"Probably not," Lucy admitted.

They came to a stop outside a room, filled with six people, talking and laughing away.

"Nervous?" Catherine asked playfully.

"Just a little," Lucy admitted, after a moment of hesitation.

"Don't worry, they won't bite." With that, Catherine opened the door and walked into the room.

Taking a deep breath, Lucy followed her.

* * *

"Alright guys, this is Lucy Brook, our newest recruit."

Lucy looked up to see a group of smiling faces. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad after all. She let out a quiet, "Hey", directed at everyone.

Catherine began the introduction process. Standing in front of a tall, well built man, Catherine began, "Lucy, this is.....

"Professor Langston", Lucy finished.

Langston smiled. "Yes, I am. How did you know?"

"The picture in your book, which by the way was excellent."

Langston looked surprised, "You bought my book, let alone read it? Wow, thank you Lucy. It's lovely to meet you."

Lucy smiled back at him.

"Moving on," said Catherine. "This is Riley Adams."

"Nice to meet you Riley," Lucy replied. They shaked hands.

"I'm Nick Stokes. Great to meet you Lucy. We've heard a lot of good things about you." Lucy detected a southern accent along with his big grin.

"I look forward to working with you too," Lucy replied, returning the grin.

Catherine continued, "This is Greg Sanders." Grey was shyly playing with his chopped blonde hair. "Nice to meet you"

"Likewise," said Lucy.

Suddenly a hand was thrust in Lucy's face. "Hi, I'm David Hodges. Lab technician extraordinaire. You need anything, just come to me. And I mean anything," he said with a slight grin.

"Hodges," Catherine said sternly, "What are you doing in here? You're not a CSI. And Lucy, "she added playfully, "just ignore him like everyone else does."

Hodges replied, "You just can't take it because I'm better at identifying trace than you are."

Catherine laughed. "Yeah, that's what it is, Hodges."

Continuing, Catherine said, "Finally, this is Detective Eric Vartann. He comes out to the crime scene and gathers as much information about the victims and the perps to help us do our jobs."

Lucy looked up into the brightest set of blue eyes she had ever seen. Her heart started beating ten times faster and it felt as if she had butterflies flying around in her stomach.

"Erm........hi," she said quietly.

"Hi," his deep voice replied, as he continued to stare into her eyes. When they shook hands, it was as if sparks flew, for Lucy at least. Although from the way Eric looked away when they touched, she was sure he felt them too.

The ringing of a phone brought Lucy back down to reality and she quickly looked down to the floor, whilst Eric cleared his voice.

Catherine opened the phone. "Willows." She listened to the person on the other end for a short time. "Okay Brass. We'll be there in ten. Bye."

To the team, she said, "We've got a 411 just off the Strip. Lucy, you're getting your first taste of being a CSI. Enjoy it. Come on guys, let's go."

With that everyone got up, pushed in their chairs and followed Catherine out of the room. Lucy, however, stood still on the spot, trying to figure out exactly what had happened with Eric.

"Aren't you coming?" She looked up to see Eric standing there, with the same look in his eyes that he had a few moments ago when they were staring into each other's.

Taking a deep breath to calm herself, Lucy replied, "Yeah I'm coming," and slowly walked out of the staff room, behind him.

* * *

**A/N: **Please review. It would mean a lot to me. :]


	3. Chapter Two

**Chapter Two**

**Disclaimer: **I don't own CSI, or anything related to CSI.

* * *

As Lucy rode shotgun in the LVPD 4x4, she began staring out the window as all the bright lights blended together as Nick Stokes cruised along the Strip. Although Lucy had been in town for little over a week, she had spent that time trying her best to make her tiny one bedroom apartment look as good as it possibly could. She had managed to change most of the wallpaper and generally clean the place up as best as she could, however it still didn't look like what she imagined in her head. Oh well, maybe someday she'd be lucky enough to find a decent apartment that wasn't expensive and didn't have mould on every wall as an added bonus. The rest of the week had been spent doing last minute preparation for her first day as a CSI. She really wanted to do her best at the job as she felt she owed it to herself after the events of the previous year. Lucy was only vaguely aware that Nick was talking about something but she wasn't really paying that much attention.

"Hmmm, did you say something?"

"You haven't been listening to a word I've said, have you?" Nick said in his southern accent.

"No, you're right, I haven't," she admitted. "I was just thinking about how to get rid of mould," she added with slight apprehension.

Nick let out a laugh. "Why on earth were you thinking about that?"

"My apartment is riddled with it. I've got most off but there's one patch that just doesn't want to move. Anyway that's enough about my mould, I'm sure you don't want to hear about it."

"Ah, the good old days of being a CSI. My apartment was the same. Try some vinegar, that's what I used to get mine's off, "Nick replied.

Lucy smiled at him, "I'll try that, thanks."

With that, Nick had slowed down as the procession of LVPD cars had arrived at the crime scene. As he parked up, Lucy could see all the CSI's had gathered together in a group along with Eric and another police officer that Lucy did not recognise, with Catherine standing in the middle. "Alright Lucy, let's go," came Nick's voice. With that, Lucy grabbed her silver briefcase which contained all her kit and jumped out of the 4x4.

* * *

As Lucy and Nick walked up to the rest of the group, Catherine began talking.

"Good to see that everyone is here," she said, acknowledging the additions of both herself and Nick to the group. "Everyone else has already been briefed. Lucy, you can stay with me and Brass, who will brief you in a minute. After that, you can go and help Nick. For now Nick, I want you to go to the body with Detective Vartann and gather as much information as possible. Riley and Greg, you can start processing the scene. Okay?"

A few mumbles were heard which meant that everyone had acknowledged their orders. Soon the group started to disperse, whilst Lucy stood there with Catherine.

"You're lucky; it seems like a pretty simple case to start off with Lucy. On my first day of being a CSI, which was a really long time ago, I had triple homicide to deal with. You obviously got the short straw," Catherine joked. As they continued with their small chit chat, a man dressed in an immaculate brown suit came over to join them.

"Hi Lucy, I'm Detective Jim Brass. Nice to meet you."

"I recognise that accent. Where are you from?" remarked Jim.

"I'm from Strabane in Idaho."

"Now I know why I remember the accent. My ex wife was from near there. I never did like her," replied Brass.

Lucy made a quick glance at Catherine who was equally as surprised by the remark as Lucy herself was.

"Right, well back to business," replied Brass, seeing the look exchanged between the two. "This is a pretty simple case actually. We just need you to collect the evidence to support the case." Looking in his notebook, he said, "The victim's name is a Jimmy Rodgers. The perp's name is a John O' Donnell. A young lady was talking a shortcut through the alley when she came across Rodgers stabbing O' Donnell. Rodgers didn't know that she was there. The witness called it in. When we got here, O'Donnell tried to run off but good old Ray caught up with him. We've got O'Donnell in custody and he's already confessed so you just need to gather the correct evidence to support the claim in front of D.A."

"Thanks Brass," said Catherine and with that Brass walked away to talk to a group of officers. "Right, I'm going to go help Riley and Greg process the scene. You can go help Nick gather evidence from the body. I'll see you back at the lab." Catherine began to walk away.

Lucy picked up her kit and walked over to Nick.

* * *

"Hey Nick. What you got?" Lucy said.

"Well, not a lot to be honest," he replied. "We find I.D. but that's all Jimmy had him. Eric is making some enquiries but it seems that he was living homeless on the streets.

Lucy sighed. "What a shame. To fall so far as to have to resort to living on the streets and then to be killed on the streets as well. It's just not fair sometimes."

Nick pondered this though, "Life's not fair."

Lucy mumbled, "Don't I know it." There was a pause for a couple of minutes before Lucy said, "So, what do you want me to do?"

"There are some fibres on his jacket. You want to collect them?" Nick said.

"Sure thing," Lucy replied. She opened her kit, which she had specifically arranged and chose her adhesive tape life. She was unaware that Eric was standing behind, listening in to their conversation.

"So," started Nick playfully, "I heard you were top of your class. Miss know-it-all."

Lucy blushed slightly. "Well, I wouldn't say I know it all because I don't. It just wasn't a smart group of people that year. It wasn't hard to achieve more than they did." On hearing this, Eric let out a small laugh and Lucy turned around. She found herself staring into his blue eyes once again, with the same butterfly feeling in her stomach.

To Nick he said, "From what I've gathered, it seems that Jimmy here was indeed sleeping rough. The other homeless guys that stay in this area said he popped up about a year ago, he kept himself to himself and never caused no trouble."

"If he didn't cause any trouble, how did he end up being stabbed to death?" Lucy said, without thinking.

"That's what I thought too," replied Eric. "Apparently O'Donnell is gone to be violent and he also likes his alcohol. Mix those two things together and you never know what could happen."

Before she could open her mouth to say something else, Eric asked, "So Lucy, what brought you to Las Vegas?"

Now Lucy's heart began beating one hundred times faster. There was absolutely no way that she was going to tell anyone what had happened to her and why she had moved to Las Vegas, but she definitely could not tell Eric. Not after the way she felt each time she looked into his eyes. "Erm...........just...........things," she stammered.

"You don't have to talk about it if you don't want, Lucy," Nick replied whilst giving Eric a look that said leave her alone.

There was silence for a few minutes whilst both Nick and Lucy continued with their work. Lucy had just finished collecting the last of the fibres, when Eric asked quietly, "Lucy, can I talk to you for a minute?"

Lucy deliberated over whether she should talk to him or not, but she found herself standing up and saying, "Sure."

Eric motioned for her to walk over to a quiet spot that was not surrounded by cops or other individuals. Lucy followed him slowly; unsure as to why he had called her over.

"Look, I'm sorry if I upset you by asking why you came to Las Vegas", he began.

"Don't worry about it," Lucy interjected but Eric seemed to pay no notice.

"It's just for some reason I want to get to know you. I mean, I want to get to know you anyway because you're new here, but.....I don't know what I'm saying. I just want to know you." With that, he looked into her eyes once more, and she then knew that she wasn't the only one who was experiencing the beating of the heart and the butterfly feeling in her stomach.

"It's okay, honestly. I'm just not ready to talk about why I moved here yet. Not with anyone. Maybe one day I'll be able to talk about it or maybe I never will, "Lucy replied and added, "But...that doesn't stop you getting to know me." She had no idea why she had just said that. She was never normally this forthcoming, considering what had happened last year.

A small smile crept across Eric's face. "That's good to know. Maybe we can..."

With that, Eric's cell phone began to ring. Making an apologetic face, he said, "Sorry, I really have to take this", and he walked away.

Lucy gave a small smile to herself and walked back over to join Nick. "What was all that about?" he asked.

"Oh, he wanted to apologize for earlier. Not that he had too," Lucy replied.

Nick replied with a grin, "Well, you'll find that we Las Vegas boys will do anything to charm a lady."

"I'm sure," Lucy laughed. "I've finished collecting these fibres. You want me to do anything else?"

"Nope, I'm just about finished up here too," Nick replied, "I guess it time's to head back to the lab. I'll just go check in with Catherine. You can head on over to the 4x4 if you want, and get the kit packed up."

"Sure thing. See you in a minute," Lucy replied before walking off.

As she made her way over to the 4x4, she passed Eric who was talking some things through with a few officers. Walking by, Eric threw a quick glance at her and Lucy met this, once again setting the butterflies off in her stomach. She couldn't help but give a small smile which Eric eagerly returned.

After packing away the kit and getting into the 4x4 to wait for Nick, she thought to herself that moving to Las Vegas wasn't such a bad move after all.

* * *

**A/N: **Please review, whether it's a good or bad review. More reviews means that I'm motivated to write the next chapter. **That's right. **I'm blackmailing people for reviews lol. :]


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